What Sharing the Burden of War Could Look Like
A Military Chaplain on How Those Who Fought and Those Who Sent Them Can Hold This Weight Together
This spring, I walked into an old Quaker meeting house on Pocumtuck homeland, now Massachusetts. I had been invited by Ojibwa Elders Strong Oak and Grandmother Nancy to participate in the Wiping of Tears healing ceremony.
I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had never met the elders, and only knew a little about the ceremony. A few weeks before, a friend of mine, who works with Elder Strong Oak, had extended the invitation to join them in what would be the first Wiping of Tears on this land for generations.
A …
